Addiction: Nicotine in cigarettes is a powerful, addictive drug that enters your brain within just 10 seconds of taking a puff on a cigarette. It <strong?>alters how your brain works and can be harder to quit than heroin.

It only requires 5mg of nicotine a day to establish a nicotine addiction. That is the equivalent of five cigarettes per day.

Lung damage: Shortness of breath, coughing, mucus and chest infections are signs that smoking is damaging your lungs.

Skin damage and wrinkles: Tar from tobacco smoke turns your fingers yellow and stains your fingernails. Smoking decreases blood flow to the skin. This leads to leathery-looking skin and increased wrinkling, even when you're young.

Mouth problems: Smoking makes it harder for your saliva to remove germs in your mouth. You'll get stains, bad breath, and a higher chance of gum disease - even if you're young. Smoking is the main reason people get tongue and mouth cancers.

Stomach ulcers: Smokers are more prone to peptic ulcers. They don't heal as fast in smokers, and they're more likely to recur. There's also growing evidence that smoking may increase the risk of chronic bowel disease.

Psoriasis: Smokers are twice as likely as non-smokers to develop psoriasis - a disfiguring red and silver rash that can occur anywhere on your body.

Lung disease: If you smoke, you're as much as 20 times more likely to die of lung cancer. But long before that, you'll find your lung capacity decreased. You may develop asthma or emphysema (often called "lung rot"). 90% of all cases of emphysema are caused by smoking.

Cancer: At least one third of all cancer deaths are attributable to smoking and smoking is causally linked to lung, laryngeal, mouth, esophageal, throat, bladder, kidney, liver, stomach, pancreas, colon, rectum, and cervical cancers.

Throat cancer: Four out of every five cases of cancer of the esophagus are due to smoking. As smoke enters your throat, cancer-causing chemicals condense on your mucous membranes.

Heart disease: Smoking is a major cause of heart attacks. Within one minute of your first puff on a cigarette, your heart begins to beat faster. Your blood vessels clamp down, raising your blood pressure and forcing your heart to work harder. Early signs of heart disease and stroke can be found even in young smokers.

Diabetes: Smoking is a cause of type 2 diabetes, also known as adult-onset diabetes. Smokers have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than nonsmokers. The risk of developing diabetes increases with the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Smoking and diabetes

Cataracts: The more you smoke, the greater your chance of developing cataracts - an eye problem that can cause blindness. Even former smokers have a 50 percent higher risk of developing a cataract.